Hi everyone, I recently discovered FSS, and likes the MH. But I have a few questions about them...

1. When the profile said the MH carry the typical arsenal of mortar headd weaponry, what weaponry does that mean? A picture or two would be helpful.

2. What exactly is a veil? Is it a shield of something?

2. Would there be any updates again on the MH profiles? I know the webmaster is busy, but I'm just curious of the state of the website, that's all. Speaking of updates, does Nagano introduces any new MH in his more recent publication?

Some interesting questions. Other people here are more qualified than me to answer but let me make an attempt.

1) The typical arsenal includes things like lasers and mine layers. Many of these weapons are built into the armor and can't be pointed to in a color illustration of the mortar headd. Reading the manga will reveal scenes where those weapons are used. Most of them are tiny little holes somewhere in the armor. The big speids (metal swords) are more dramatic and easier to identify.

2) A veil is a shield that has portions hollowed out to hold weapons, cooling systems, additional generators, etc. Because a veil does more than serve as a shield it isn't called a sheild.

3) I do have additional images I'd like to post to the mortar headd pages on Gears Online but my scanner is busted. It's a frustrating situation for me. I'm saving up for a new scanner. I haven't seen as many new mortar headds in recent issues of Five Star Stories as I'd like. Nagano released big color illustrations of many mortar headds that he hadn't shown in the manga yet. I'm guessing he needs to produce more manga volumes before we'll see new mortar headd designs.

Sulendil Zeta wrote:Hi everyone, I recently discovered FSS, and likes the MH. But I have a few questions about them...

Welcome! The Five Star Stories is easily the coolest manga on the planet. Its a shame its not as popular as some other less inricate manga. (but then again, since its not very popular, we can feel a part of an exclusive clique...or not, its up to you)

1. When the profile said the MH carry the typical arsenal of mortar headd weaponry, what weaponry does that mean? A picture or two would be helpful.

This is mentioned in the basic description of Mortar Headds at the beginning of the MH section. To expand on what Tachyon has mentioned:
Mortar Headds carry a plethora of weaponry including Lasers, rockets, missiles, machine guns, anti-armor cannons, grendades, mines etc. These are not its main method of combating other Mortar Headds though. Mortar Headds are notoriously tough and ridiculously agile and they tend to be able to dodge/block gunfire and the speed at which a Fatima works, she can easily spot and spoof any missile that has locked on to a Mortar Headd, so the main weapon for MH vs MH combat is a sword (called a speid) or a laser sword (called a Spaad).
Speids are usually made of an incredibly dense metal known as Metrotekachrome. It weighs a lot and thus, MH speids have the mass necessary to generate the kinetic energy needed to cut through MH armor.
Spaads are the FSS version of a Lightsabre. They are "laser bladed" and do damage via extreme heat energy. While they are able to cut through many objects fairly effortlessly, more heavily armored or heat resistant objects (like MH's) can withstand a Spaad blade...at least for a short time. Spaads are also notoriously fragile, since its just a hilt that produces a laserbade, so MH's tend to carry a few of them so they don't run out. The main advantage of a Spaad is that more energy can be channelled through the Spaad to make it hotter and hopefully cut through the enemies armor and a Spaad can be used to "parry" the energy beams and anti-armor projectiles from enemy units. A Speid can also parry these attacks, but there is always a (good) chance of the blade being damaged or broken, which is a highly undesirable scenario. Most Mortar Headds carry both a Speid and several Spaads.

Mortar Headds also carry other types of weapons for hand to hand combat with other MH units. Axes, maces and spears/lances have all been seen in use in the manga. In real life, on the battlefield weapons like axes and maces were actually more common than swords, because when facing heavy armored opponents, a sword wasn't exactly the best option. Axes and maces, both having a weight distribution that places most of the mass on the end of the weapon, have the leverage necessary to penetrate heavy armor. The same applies in MH combat, as when nations are expecting their Mortar Headds to see heavy combat, they outfitt their MH units in heavy armor. At the beginning of the battle of Hathuhunt, both armies have their MH units carrying maces for this exact reason.

At least one Mortar Headd we know about (the Bangdoll) carries what is known as an "Energy Sword". This is a physical weapon like a Speid, but it has powercables that connect it to the MH unit and it is capable of being charged with energy from the MH's power plant to produce powered strikes which can devastate the opponent. It is unclear why more MH units don't make use of this type of weapon. Perhaps it is because the amount of energy necessary to charge such a weapon may leave the MH bereft of power for maneuvering and in MH combat, maneuverability is everything.

There is also an interesting weapon in FSS known as a Birarkema. A Birarkema is a big laser machine gun capable of firing at an extremely rapid rate. The amount of energy they put out is devastating to the opponent and can be a threat to even MH units. Normally, Birarkema Laser Machine guns are their own mobile unit and part of a tank battalion or artillery squad. However the AKD fields at least 1 Mortar Headd equipped with twin Birarkema guns that mount to its back and swing down VSBR-style. This MH (known as a Rogue Mirage) is specifically for artillery support, which is quite an unusual function for a MH unit.

There are also Buster Launchers of course. MH's can be equipped with these, though its pretty rare to do so because of how much they weigh and how much power is needed to operate them. Only higher class Mortar Headds can be equipped with Buster Launchers because of the drain on MH's power plant. The Jagd Mirage is one of only two types of MH's that have a Buster Launcher as permanent equipment. (the other is the Knight of Gold)

In addition to all of the offensive weaponry stated above, MH's have a host of defensive weaponry/options at their disposal. Many of the lasers and machine guns placed throughout a MH's frame are used defensively, either as anti-vehicle or anti-personel weaponry or as missile defense (similar to a Phalanx mounted on modern warships) Mortar Headds also carry many smoke grenades and can produce enough smoke to obscure an entire battlefield. In addition, MH's make use of Electronic Warfare of all types and varieties with the capability of jamming communications, spoofing enemy missile, disabling radar etc. Some MH's also have defensive energy shields that they can deploy which will deflect lasers and particle beams and possibly machine gun fire as well. That way the MH pilot only need to concentrate on other Mortar Headd units and not worry about personnel or vehicles in the area disabling his MH with a lucky shot to some critical system.

2. What exactly is a veil? Is it a shield of something?

Was that not made clear in the basic introduction to Mortar Headds? Yes, a veil is (at its most basic function) a Mortar Headd sized shield. But as Tachyon mentioned, they tend to be far more than that. At the very least, they are used to house additional (backup) weapons and ammunition. Amaterasu changed the game by putting additional power generators/boosters in the veil which allowed his nations MH units to generate more power, so later this becomes a fairly standard practice. Veils can also house additional offensive weaponry such as the LED Mirage's Veil Claw.

2. Would there be any updates again on the MH profiles? I know the webmaster is busy, but I'm just curious of the state of the website, that's all. Speaking of updates, does Nagano introduces any new MH in his more recent publication?

Nagano frequently adds more Mortar Headds to his list. The problem is that he takes forever with his breaks, so it could be years before we see many of his MH designs in action. Currently in the manga, there is a huge war going on so we're going to see more MH action in this current chapter than we have in the manga up to this point. So stay tuned MH fans, it should get interesting. Volume 11 was particularly juicy for MH fans. Give it a look if you haven't already. (I'm talking about the Japanese versions. The English version only covers up to Japanese volume 10)

Tachyon: Ouch, that's a bad news. Hope you will able to get a new one soon.

Nu Soard Graphite: Well, most of the info in your post is not really on the introduction page, so I do not aware of most stuff, including the veil. Bang Doll's sword is an interesting concept, which has similiarity with Gundam Epyon's beam saber and GN Flag's beam saber. BTW, is there any MH that are not listed on the current MH pages?

BTW, I heard there's 3 version of KOG. What's the story behind this? And where can I find those translated manga online?

Nu Soard Graphite: Well, most of the info in your post is not really on the introduction page, so I do not aware of most stuff, including the veil. Bang Doll's sword is an interesting concept, which has similiarity with Gundam Epyon's beam saber and GN Flag's beam saber. BTW, is there any MH that are not listed on the current MH pages?

There are several. Our list is getting fairly comprehensive, but its not yet complete. Most of all the star MH's are there (AKD MH's, Fillmore, Hathua, Colus etc) but there are a lot of 'only seen once' types that haven't made the list yet.

BTW, I heard there's 3 version of KOG. What's the story behind this? And where can I find those translated manga online?

Yes, there are multiple "versions" of the Knight of Gold.

Version 1: This is the Water Dragon, designed by Amaterasu and given to his top knight, Deimos Hierarchy. Hierarchy passed it down to Kaien who renamed it the Schpeltor. The Water Dragon was Amaterasu's first attempt at an ultimate Mortar Headd and it was the test bed for his upgraded parts.

Version 2: This is the Knight of Gold: Lachesis version. The one we see at the beginning of the Manga. Amaterasu manages to improve upon his Water Dragon design and included a Buster Launcher as standard equipment. However later, Amaterasu realises that the inclusion of the Launcher causes too many instabilities in the power system of the MH and thus he decides to design Version 3. K.O.G. V2 will travel the multi-verse with Lachesis after they are lost in a Teleportation accident during the battle of Kallamity sometime in the 3200's

Version 3: This is the Knight of Gold: Atropos, also known as the Patrasque Mirage. This is the one piloted by Upandora and co-piloted by Atropos and used against the rebel forces at the end of the A.K.D.'s galactic dominance. It doesn't have a Buster Launcher attatched so it doesn't suffer from the same kinds of operational breakdowns that Version 2 suffered from.

As far as translated manga is concerned, here is the link for the first 80 pages of Volume 11:

hmmm... Again we see people are confused about the KOG series of MHs. I'd try to explain it with some analogies and hope it helps.

First, regarding multiple names of a single MH, it actually makes sense and is more "real". There are lots of real life examples of certain items, places, animals etc having multiple names describing the same thing. For e.g. Earth is also called Terra, Gaia, the World, etc. Having multiple names in the fictional world of FSS is definitely NOT contradicting, in fact makes it more "real-world", IMHO .

As for the various MHs of the KOG series, think of it like... say computers. Hardware wise, we had the 286, 386, 486, now Pentium Pro ~ Pentium 4. The different INTEL processors are from the same series, just like the different Mortar Headds (Water Dragon, KOG LC, KOG AT) are from the SAME series (KOG series).

But that's not all. Each processor can run software and you get upgraded versions of the software, e.g. Windows 2000, XP, Vista etc. Similarly, MHs get upgraded from time to time - such as MHs wearing different armors etc maybe even gets upgraded with improved performance, so we get various versions of the same MH.

The KOG series includes the following:
1. Water Dragon (Schpeltor)
2. KOG LC (Lachesis) also called Destiny Mirage. at least 11 versions. The KOG with a ceremonial bow in the Year 3007 display is ver 3.
3. KOG AT (Atropos) also called Patraqushe Mirage. at least 8 versions.
4. The Will (not a MH but a ship)
5. MMT Venus (not a MH... MMT for Kallen)
(6? not confirmed if it exists)

When we say KOG, we are usually referring to #2 KOG LC (aka Destiny Mirage).

We don't get to see all the different versions, we also don't have the details of the differences. KOG ver 3 (i.e. version 3 of KOG LC/Destiny Mirage) - the one shown with the bow - was upgraded with semi-transparent armor.

Also do not be confused when i say there are 11 versions of Destiny Mirage, it does NOT mean that there are physically 11 MHs - there is only ONE Destiny Mirage. There is only ONE of each of the 5 types of mecha from the KOG series - they were never mass-produced, some of them just gets upgraded.

Sulendil Zeta wrote:Thanks for the answer about KOG, Rubel Colus! I'm amazed of how many makeovers the KOG been through.

BTW, can anyone tell me more about the engines of the MH. I'm especially interested in the the Ezlazer engine. Is that what makes LED Mirage so powerful and feared?

Ezlazer engines are a common form of power generation in The Five Star Stories. All Mortar Headds and many larger/powerful vehicles are powered using Ezlazer engines. Nagano goes into lengthy explaination on exactly how Ezlazer engines work (it has something to do with compressing some kind of radioactive isotope to an extreme fusion state generating energy at nearly 100% efficiency) and we will likely have such an article on the site at some point in the future. Lets just say that a single Ezlazer engine can power the entire United States (and probably Canada and Mexico too) all by itself. And I'm talking about the Ezlazer engine of a Barunja, one of the weakest MH's in the manga!

The reason why the LED Mirage (and other Mirage Machines) are so powerful is because Amaterasu signficantly improved the basic design of the Ezlazer eninge, miniaturized it, allowing it to be moved from the Torso to the Calf region of his MH's. He then put in two engines and put energy boosting equipment in the torso. The end result allows his MH's to generate more than twice the power of conventional Mortar Headds!

Nu Soard Graphite wrote:Ezlazer engines are a common form of power generation in The Five Star Stories. All Mortar Headds and many larger/powerful vehicles are powered using Ezlazer engines. Nagano goes into lengthy explaination on exactly how Ezlazer engines work (it has something to do with compressing some kind of radioactive isotope to an extreme fusion state generating energy at nearly 100% efficiency) and we will likely have such an article on the site at some point in the future. Lets just say that a single Ezlazer engine can power the entire United States (and probably Canada and Mexico too) all by itself. And I'm talking about the Ezlazer engine of a Barunja, one of the weakest MH's in the manga!

The reason why the LED Mirage (and other Mirage Machines) are so powerful is because Amaterasu signficantly improved the basic design of the Ezlazer eninge, miniaturized it, allowing it to be moved from the Torso to the Calf region of his MH's. He then put in two engines and put energy boosting equipment in the torso. The end result allows his MH's to generate more than twice the power of conventional Mortar Headds!

Wow, so the Mirages machine has 3 Ezlazer engines? OMG!!!

It makes me wonder, with so much powers generated from the engines, where does those powers go? Move the MH? Power the weapons?